(68 mins.) Released 1932-08-10
Director: Norman McLeod
Stars: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, The Marx Brothers
comedy, musical, romance, sport
originally posted 3 Oct 2017 23:34
MB movie #4. With Thelma Todd, no Margaret Dumont. College football is the theme, and we actually have some horses and some feathers in the film. Chico plays the piano and negotiates with Groucho; Harpo plays the harp, and retrieves various large objects from his pockets. They actually have occupations here: Chico is the iceman/bootlegger, Harpo is the dog catcher (with a horse; later he hijacks a street-cleaner's cart with horses.) Harpo hangs many copies of a poster/calendar of old timey showgirl.
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The feathers show up in a canoe scene, where a duck is following the canoe paddled by Todd, with Groucho under a parasol, strumming a guitar and singing. He also refers to An American Tragedy (1931), the precursor to A Place in the Sun (1951).
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Groucho plays the new president of the college where his son Zeppo is a student (for 12 years), which hasn't won at football since 18xx. There's a little too much football in the movie, but it's bad, gag-filled football (all 4 MBs are on the field at one point.)
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At one point, in Groucho's office, Harpo burns books in the office fireplace. (No, the Nazi's were not burning books until May 10, 1933. I hope they weren't inspired by this film, because they were burning books at universities. No mention of Horse Feathers on the Holocaust museum site, and the MBs are Jews, so unlikely to have been studied by Nazis.)
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Paramount, dir. McLeod; 7+
